My sermon the other week was about focusing on God as the Lord’s Prayer help us to do. It was an appropriate place to begin our exploration of the Holy Land.

We journeyed down the Mount of Olives, with its amazing view of the old city, to Dominus Flavit. We were met at the gate by a monk, sitting under a tree with a pipe and a pint of what looked very much like beer! He reminded me of friar tuck in Robin Hood!

The church commemorates the place where Jesus looked out over the city, and wept. It struck me that things haven’t changed much. A city of God which is divided equally by walls and belief. Today was Friday prayers and it’s still Ramadan so the Muslim Quarter was packed with people. The police were out in force but the rest of the city was quiet.

Gethsemane next and my favourite church, the church of all nations. For the first time the connection between the lord’s prayer and Jesus’ prayer in the garden struck me. Read them together and you’ll see what I mean.

Onwards to the tomb of Mary. Down lots of stairs into the dark of an Orthodox church. And the smell… Incense and candles.

From there we walked around outside the city walls to avoid the crowds to the dung gate and the western wall. The wall is as close as the Jews can get to where the Temple housing the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant once stood.

And that was our morning. More later but it’s time for bed. Off to the Holy Sepulchre at 6.30am.

We arrived in Jerusalem early this evening to be met by good friends. It was so good to see them and doesn’t seem like a year since we last met.

Last year we came to help with a summer camp, this year is for a pilgrimage to see the Holy Sites and to meet with people to hear about life in this beautiful broken country.

Tomorrow we are starting our day at the top of the mount of olives and working our way down the hill. Ramadan and the Sabbath collide tomorrow night so we will be steering clear of what promises to be a tense afternoon in the old city.

I’m interested to see how our group experience this Holy Land. And I’m interested to see how I encounter it with more time and space to see and think and feel it.

I think most of the places we’re staying have wi-fi so I’ll try to blog as we go but no doubt the detail will come next week when we’re home.

Now, to sleep. It’s been a long day. And we’re sleeping in the Knight’s Palace hotel, where the knights of the crusades gathered centuries ago. I wonder what the people of those times would make of it now?

Done

I was delighted to hand in my completed dissertation today.  I’ll find out in the next couple of weeks if it has passed.  If it has, I’ll stick it up on the blog here so you can tell me how many mistakes there are in it.  This thing has taken over my life in a way that I really didn’t expect.

I wouldn’t have managed it without a lot of help.

The people at Linwood Parish Church have been amazing.

My better half, Avril, has been a star.  Who knew having a pedant handy would be so helpful?!?  Seriously, her help editing and spell checking and generally keeping me motivated (kicking me up the backside) have meant it was handed in almost on time!

Gone

In other news… this time tomorrow I’ll be in Jerusalem!

The rules: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen albums you’ve heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag fifteen friends, including me, because I’m interested in seeing what albums my friends choose. (If you’re on Facebook: To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your fifteen picks, and tag people in the note– upper right hand side.)??

I’m breaking the rules.  I’m not going to tag anyone but if you feel like answering then fire away in the comments below.  I’d be interested to know.

1. Listen Like Thieves -INXS

2. The Joshua Tree – U2

3. Hats – The Blue Nile

4. Alchemy – Dire Straits

5. Once Upon A Time – Simple Minds

6. Raintown – Deacon Blue

7. 101 – Depeche Mode

8. Blood on the Tracks – Bob Dylan

9. True Blue – Madonna

10. Changes – David Bowie

11. Nebraska – Bruce Springsteen

12. Achtung Baby – U2

13. Play – Moby

14. Collection – Tracy Chapman

15. Van Halen – Van Halen?

Something struck me about both experiences… Kids like to play.

Both the holiday and the camp were low tech.

On holiday the kids spent much of their time playing in a burn (that’s a stream for those not in Scotland), riding their bikes, or running around with the other kids they met.

At camp we played games, made stuff from newspaper and balloons and tape, sang songs, danced and talked.

There is something to be said for unplugging…

Anyone fancy cycling from Glasgow to Edinburgh on 12 September?  I’m thinking about doing the Challenge Ride… Just thinking, but if someone wanted to keep me company…

And it’s all in aid of Maggies Centres.

I’m in the final (hopefully) throws of the dissertation and I’m battering away at a couple of sections before editing my findings.

The parts getting attention just now are about ‘the Church and social capital’ and ‘youth work strategy’.

The social capital discussion has been really interesting.  I asked in twitter and facebook if the church should have a role in social capital and got some great examples of how it already is, why it should be and some of the dangers.

So, what do you think?  Should the church be part of ‘Call me Dave’s’ Big Society?  After all, that’s a social capital drive if ever there was one!  Does the church have something unique to offer?  Or should it stand apart as a prophetic voice?

The second part on Youth Work strategy is a quick wade through Moving Forward, the Scottish Government’s youth strategy which, like those of England and Wales, don’t really pay much attention to spiritual development, despite it being one of the core areas of youth development.

Should the church be saying more about this?  Are we any good at helping young people to develop spiritually?  Or do we just play games and go bowling?

What do you think?

Everything I’ve read says that the institutional church is:

a) declining and

b) increasingly irrelevant

So, I have two questions.

Am I just reading one side of the argument, and if so can you point me in the other direction?

If I’m not, and they are right, how come we seem to be pretty much persisting with a model which doesn’t work?

I know that it can be argued that ‘emerging church’ and ‘fresh expressions’ are having a go at something new but at a structural level the churches in the UK aren’t even considering wholesale reform.

Why not?

HT to Steven

The ConDem coalition seems to have settled in and the world hasn’t come to an end, at least not yet.

What has been fascinating is the size, speed and range of political and economic reform that the new partnership wants to force through.

The criticism of the Tories before the election was that they didn’t have any policies.  Again and again we heard that ‘Call me Dave’ had no substance, that there was nothing behind the rhetoric but it seems that there was… they were just keeping it a secret!

So, now the excitment and hullabaloo of the election is over and the government has settled in, a question.

Is this what you voted for?

You see, I voted Lib Dem.  Mostly because I didn’t want to vote for the Labour candidate in our constituency.  I voted for them because of their manifesto, their history of trying to champion fairness and human rights, their opposition to Trident…

That’s not what I got in return for my vote.  But then those who voted Tory didn’t get what it said on the tin either.

And we all seem to be ok with this…